18 | AUGUST 4 • 2022 

O

n May 25, JBLU was 
launched. The Jewish 
Black Unity project 
was inspired by Israeli Consul 
Yinam Cohen in a meeting 
with Black and Jewish leaders 
of the Coalition for Black and 
Jewish Unity when he called 
for building bridges between 
Jewish and African American 
students — and hopefully lead-
ing to partnerships with Israeli 
students as well. JBLU was 
the offshoot of that meeting, 
created by JCRC/AJC’s Israel 
Associate Adar Rubin and the 
Council of Baptist Pastors’ Rev. 
Sterling Brewer. 
Black students from Pershing 
High School in Detroit met 
up at the Zekelman Holocaust 
Center with Jewish students 
— three from Frankel Jewish 
Academy and three from 

Farber Hebrew Day School. 
Their mission was to learn 
about each other’s historical 
suffering — the Holocaust in 
Europe and slavery in America 
— and how these communities 
were able to survive that hatred, 
racism and antisemitism. The 
deeper, long-term goal was for 
diverse students to meet each 
other and start to understand 
the challenges that they each 
face — both similar and dif-
ferent.
“Our communities, Jewish 
and Black, and our youth, have 
so much in common, from 
our histories to the hatred we 
both currently face. The chal-
lenge for us is to understand 
each other better, to realize 
our shared needs and to work 
together to help each other,
” 
said Rabbi Asher Lopatin, 

executive director of the Jewish 
Community Relations Council/
AJC Detroit.
The students began the 
morning by hearing from a 
next-generation, daughter of 
Holocaust survivors and then 
experiencing the HC’s large 
Holocaust history exhibit. They 
were led by one of the center’s 
expert guides and spent time 
understanding the horrors of 
antisemitism in its most vicious 
form, including observing the 
Center’s cattle car that trans-
ported hundreds of Jews to 
their death. 
Then, after a kosher lunch, 
the students took buses and 
cars to spend time at the 
Charles H Wright Museum of 
African American History, to 
shift over and work on under-
standing the horrors of the 

African American experience 
as slaves, and the racism and 
hatred that enabled that cruel, 
inhuman system.
Rev. Brewer summarized 
the experience: “The Charles 
Wright Museum and the 
Zekelman Holocaust Center 
field trip between high schools, 
one from the Black commu-
nity and two from the Jewish 
community, was an exceptional 
experience bringing together 
two different cultures with sim-
ilar history as related to slavery.
“The purpose for this field 
trip was to begin developing 
relationships between future 
leaders from our young people 
in the Jewish and Black com-
munities,
” he continued. “Our 
children learned some hard 
facts about each other’s back-
grounds that can be a founda-
tion where trust can build for 
future learning experiences in 
the area of STEM education. 
Furthermore, these learning 
experiences can build stronger 
global communities — relation-
ships between both groups for 
the common good within the 
world we live in today.
”
JCRC/AJC’s Rubin said, “In 
an age of extreme political 
polarization … It is critical 
now more than ever that we 
provide more interfaith and 
intercultural opportunities to 
bring people together, to intel-
lectually process our shared 
history of struggle, but most 
importantly… to tell our stories 
of triumph as a testament of 
being the future collaborators 
and community leaders of 
tomorrow.
”
One of the Pershing students 
spoke powerfully, “I never 
knew the Jews went through 
so much… People were trying 
to take them off the face of the 
Earth… Hatred for no rea-
son… I never knew anything 
about that till today.
” 

Story and photos submitted by JCRC/

AJC.

A Tale of 
Two Museums

1

OUR COMMUNITY

JCRC/AJC brings Jewish and African American 
students together to understand each other’s history.

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